Playing Jazz Without Playing Jazz

Who said that?

I can't remember but I heard it recently.

I've been thinking about Helen Molesworth talking about "visual rhyming."

What if this blog were nothing but visual rhyming?

I'm going to try it sometime, sometime when I am feeling particularly speechless or forlorn.

You've been looking at pictures of the Imperial Opa on a rooftop in Castleberry. Julia Hill is doing some art directing! They were great.

Hanz told me that America is running out of helium.

In something like 40 years we will have run dry.

Dear Blogger, why do you always do weird things like underline text for no reason?

I guess they found that a particularly important sentence.

Apparently helium really ought to cost around $100 a balloon.

Imagine an America of limp balloons.

Oakhurst Community Garden sale = lack of self control.

What we're talking about here are not just any ordinary tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers.

I have a really good feeling about the garden this year. It shall overfloweth.

Alright art blog, time to look at art.

There are a lot of good things suddenly happening right now.

John Heward, "untitled (abstractions)," 1987-2011, Canvas, rayon, acrylic, ink, oil, metal clamps.

Like John Heward's work just opened at the Contemporary

it's fantastic, this entire show is fantastic

raw and unencumbered and poetic and to the point.

John Yau had a lot to say about the elitism of materials and production in art making. Wealthy collectors are more comfortable with expensively made art (think Gursky or Koons); luxury items for a luxury lifestyle.

Completely missing the point of art.

John Heward on the other hand is exactly onto the point of art.

So if this were a visual rhyme, essentially a visual poem discussing visual things visually

there would be some nice juxstaposing images of graffiti, billboards of stark icons,

an image of my roommate's bathroom towels hanging neatly in an array of subtle color variation,

some solid representation of abstract expressionism, a nod the current trend to "free" the painting from the geometric two-dimensional structure of canvas and stretcher bars,

maybe the image from earlier of the fallen tree with all of the words and symbols carved into the trunk (or is that not primitive enough?) Heward's work is unadulterated mark making and yet

the marks are caught up in the fluidity of the fabric, changing shape based on the way the fabric is hung or draped, a gesture outside of the artist himself considering that gallery visitors have the opportunity to take part in the placement.

There is a nice accompanying video that serves to explain the work - or at least place the viewer into a particular mode of thinking about the work. With some great quotes, I think from W.H. Auden poem(s)?

"Intention, accident, acceptance."

"It's to seize and clap perception." (I found that particularly fitting).

And in other news the great Paul Boshears just wrote a review on Dongoski's show at Whitespace you ought to read. The show is in its last week, check it out.